Clay (17 page)

“Tell me!” I cried. "You haven’t failed! You did not dare to fail! You succeeded! I will see again!”

“Yes! Yes! It’s all right. I succeeded! Please... let me go...”

I did. I sank back against the pillows. Relief and weariness flooded my body; after a time I slept. Once, during the night, I woke, to hear the spineless sound of a man sobbing. A bottle and glass clattered, neck-to-mouth. The fool was at it again. I did not interfere. Let him drown, in his sotted forgetfulness. He had served his purpose. I was finished with him.

The weeks of convalescence were not as tedious as I had feared; during, those last hours of interminable night I was sustained by taut anticipation. I scoffed at Victor’s uneasiness. Time and again, he sighed, at my mocking laughter

“You must, not expect too much, Herr Doktor. We can’t be certain....”

“Nonsense! You yourself said the operation was a success. I shall see! See with the young perfect eyes of Simon Conrad!”

Victor’s pessimism did not touch me. My mind was filled with plans for the resumption of my career; for the rebuilding of the life of the master surgeon, Herr Doktor Luther Markheim. I dreamed of the moment when I should watch the idiots who had supplanted me swallow their loathesome pity for a “blind hasbeen.” My sense of security lasted until three days before the removal of the eye-bandages. Then, quite unexpectedly, a visitor came to Zengerstein.

*

BY HIS tread and the timbre, of his voice, he was a stolid man of perhaps forty-five. He spoke, calmly, and with respect; his tone was cultured, though with a faint inflection of the bauer. One would not have supposed him to be connected with the police. He said his name was Koch; Inspector Koch, of the Donaueschingen constabulary. Almost imperceptibly, Victor drew a sharp breath. Only a blind man, with heightened aural sensitivity could have caught the intensity of that tiny gasp.

“Well, Herr Inspektor,” I said quietly. “And, what brings the police to Zengerstein...?”

“The need of information,” Koch said tonelessly. “We thought perhaps you could help, mein herr...”

“Gladly, but I don’t see...”

“Perhaps I’d best explain... You see, two weeks ago, a man named Conrad, a jeweler from Munich, set out from Donaueschingen on a walking tour of the Schwarzwald region. His wife and several friends chose to stay behind and await his return. He never, came back...” Koch cleared his throat.

“Victor,” I put in. “Perhaps the Inspektor would care for a bit of burgundy...”

“Ja...” I heard Victor at the cabinet. He brought two glasses. He poured Koch’s drink and began to fill my goblet.

“It is wondered,” Koch continued, “if perhaps he lost his way... and happened onto Zengerstein....”

Victor’s hand jolted; wine spilled over my fingers.

“Look what you’re doing, you idiot!” At that instant, I could have killed him for his treacherous cowardice. I could only cover the slip as quickly as possible, and hope that Koch had not guessed its import.

“I’m afraid, Herr Inspektor, we can be of little assistance...” I shook my head, sipping burgundy. “You are the first visitor to Zengerstein in a good many years. No one could have come here without our knowledge. The dogs alone would have frightened him off...”

Koch sighed. “I see...”

“It is possible the poor devil lost his way in the Forest...”

“Ja...” The Inspector rose slowly from his chair. “Ja, that is what we fear... Of course, my questioning you was only routine, mein herr...”

“I quite understand.” My tone was apologetic. “I should be only too happy to help, if I could...”

I did not like the moment of silence that followed; I sensed, the shifting of Victor’s feet beside my chair, as though he cringed under a steady scrutiny. I liked it even less when Inspector Koch finally answered, me in his flat voice:

“Perhaps you have already, Herr Doktor...”

He left; Victor saw Kim to the door. Sitting alone in the library, I clutched the goblet in both hands; it splintered; needles of pain gashed my palms, and I felt a wet warmth that might have been wine —or blood. That night, in the quiet of my bedchamber, Koch’s double-edged words echoed malevolently. And I knew Victor must never make another such mistake as he had made this afternoon; he and the threat of his weakling nature must be wiped out.

This time it was easier. It may be that the second time is always easier. Against Simon Conrad I had harbored no grudge. But loathing for the spineless Victor had festered within me for nearly a decade. Now, he had become downright dangerous. Once again, his sotted stupidity threatened to ruin my life. Any scruples I had had in connection with Conrad’s murder were entirely lacking as I planned that of Victor Rupert. My hands were steady; my voice calm. I was completely equal to the task that lay before me.

The acquisition of the poison was not difficult; every bottle in the laboratory was so arranged that I, in my blindness, could select from memory; my presence in the laboratory or at the wine-cabinet could hardly arouse Victor’s suspicion. He had drunk a good deal during the day; the bottle I set on our table at dinner must have seemed as innocent as any other; the poison did not change the color of the wine. I ate little that night; I toyed with my food and waited. Finally, it came. He was setting down his glass when it slipped from numbed fingers. A gasp tore from his lungs.

“Doktor!... My throat!... that wine... burning in my chest... I...”

He broke off, struggling for breath; he must have seen the quiet smile that crossed my lips.

“Nein!” Victor lurched to his feet; his chair crashed backward; china shattered from the table to the stone floor. “Nein!” It was an agonized scream, now. “A mistake... don’t let me die... you can’t!” His clawed fingers caught at my robe; he whimpered like a dying cur. I thrust him from me; he fell against the cabinet-de-vin; bottles and glasses clattered wildly. “You can’t! You must save me... I lied... You vain fool, I lied... Don’t you see? ...If I die... If...” The words clotted in his seared mouth; a gurgling screech dwindled in the shadowed stillnesses of Zengerstein. Rupert crumpled in a silent heap.

He was not heavy, but the descent into the crypt seemed endless. Spiderwebs brushed my face; a rat slithered across my feet and I stumbled, nearly dropping my hideous burden. The poison had worked quickly; droplets of still-warm blood oozed from Victor’s scorched mouth; in the tomb itself a noisome stench choked my nostrils; without benefit of embalming, the remains of Simon Conrad had decomposed rapidly. I lay Victor on the shelf by the side of the maggot-eaten thing he had helped create. I was glad when it was over. I climbed wearily to my chamber and locked myself in. I should have been relieved; the last barrier to the safety of the new life that awaited me had been eliminated. Yet, strangely, I slept ill that night. The howling of the hounds was unbearable. They had been Victor’s pets.

I thought the time would never come. The bandages itched intolerably; the waiting had done nothing for my nerves. Early this evening a fresh storm swept south along the River Murg. Demented winds chanted litanies in the depths of the Schwarzwald. I could hear the voices of men and the baying of hunting dogs, rising intermittantly above the storm. Inspector Koch and his deputies were unrelenting in their search for the man whose flesh slowly rotted in the Vaults below Zengersteinschloss. I cursed Koch and his infernal curiosity. I soothed, myself with the speculation that it was but a matter of hours now; once I had removed the bandages, I could leave this damnable place, return to Freiburg and the life in which I belonged. After tonight...

*

THE laboratory seemed cold despite the fire in the grate. My hands were coated with sweat. The surgical scissors slipped several times in my trembling fingers. It
will
work, my mind chanted; it
must work!
I unwound the bandages carefully; cotton adhered to the healing flesh of my eyes. Then, the last strip of gauze fell away; an instant of darkness and my eyelids flickered. The blackness wavered and at its heart flared a tiny, dancing object —the flaming moth of the gaslamp that stood before me! Lieber Gott, I could see!

I celebrated; my triumphant laughter violated the sullen dark of the Castle. I drank too much wine and ate too heartily. I toasted the impotent ghosts of Conrad and Victor and mocked their shadows that seemed to linger in the dim corners of the library. I was delirious with joy. And why not? Life sprawled before me anew in the wonderful colors of a world I had not seen for nearly a decade. Tomorrow, I would quit this house of the dead; tomorrow, I would set out for Freiburg. And, now, in farewell, I wandered the halls of Zengerstein, drinking in sights I had thought never to know again. The candelabra glinting in errant firelight, the tapestries alive with medieval pageantry, the Gothic arches of the upper corridors, and, yes, the chamber that had been, my mother’s private sitting room —all before me now, just as, I remembered them from childhood. Even the needlework my mother’s hand had wrought remained as though she had left it there only last evening, incomplete, awaiting, her return. How strange, I marvelled, that it has not altered in all these lonely years! How very strange! And, my own bedchamber, the same as ever, the canopied bed, the fencing foils and mask like skull and crossbones upon the stone wall above the mantlepiece, and the full-length mirror by the bed... the mirror...

Perhaps it was the wine. But, as I paused before that mirror, peering into its watery crater, it seemed, for one awful instant, that I saw no reflection of myself. The glass had become a vast threshold on the lip of outer night, beyond which lay only steps going down—down to the bowels of earth, through the tombs of Zengerstein. And, as I watched, out of those catacombs rose a livid sphere of flesh, shapeless and twisted in a hideous grin. Instinctively, I drew away from that mask, and yet I could not shut from view the pallor of those flaccid jowls, the warped mouth, the hair, matted like reptiles on a scabrous skull. The dead- white skin was covered with raw cicatrices, as if some latent putrescence had seeped through the pores; and from scarred pits, sightless eyes glared at me. Breath rasped in my lungs. I reeled away from that hateful reflection, my mind screaming, No, no, it cannot be! And yet, I knew, beyond a doubt, the pale face that scowled from the glass was mine! Terror whirled in my brain; sobbing, I fell across the counter pane to sink almost immediately into a dreamless sleep —a stupor from which I woke —God knows how soon or late!— to find that blasphemous Thing of the mirror’s depths bending over me!

It was not real; I lay riveted to the bed by some subconscious paralysis, and told myself it was a dream; an hallucination spawned by overwrought nerves and the macabre adventure through which I had gone in the past month. In reality, there could never exist a loathesome monster such as crowded its face close to mine in this horrible instant. Yet, even as I denied my sense of sight, a damp hand brushed my chest; fingers closed on my windpipe; the lips bared decayed teeth in a malevolent leer. The form lurched nearer and the free hand rose, very slowly. I stared, unbelieving, at the scalpel grasped in those murderous fingers. And then, I knew. This was no childhood nightmare that would wither and die in sobs of waking relief. This was inescapable truth. I knew that in the maniacal visage that bent above my bed, I was seeing myself, the pale killer, as my victim had seen me in his moment of final agony; viewing the horror of my soul through the eyes of Simon Conrad, the man I had murdered!

I think I screamed. I tore free of the vise-like talons and crashed blindly to the floor. I stumbled to my feet, clutching the doorway for support. And then, I ran. Aimlessly, madly, I ran, winding through the labyrinthian ways of the Castle, whimpering like the fabled child, lost in the Forest. I ran until my heart pounded in my ears, my breath jolted from exhausted lungs. In the end, I cowered in some niche in the upper darkness of Zengerstein, and waited.

It did not come. I waited like a beaten animal for death, and it did not come. The Thing of the mirror gave no pursuit. Behind me, the catacombs of corridor lay silent. Gradually, my sobbing quieted; my pulse slowed but remained erratic. Sweat bathed the seamed pallor of my face. Very slowly, I wound my way toward the flickering of the lamp that still burned in my bedchamber; carefully—with what fearful gentleness!—I opened the door... Nothing. The room was empty. Plaintively, the storm begged entrance at the casements; outside, the hounds bayed. In the chamber itself, there was no sound save the mocking hiss of the gas lamp.

And it has been thus for the last three hours.

But, I am not fooled. I am still as clever as that Thing that lurks in the abyss of the mirror; I know the game it plays with me—a torturing game of cat-and-mouse. It has retreated, now; it would have me hope; it would have me believe it was all a dream, a trick of the imagination. I am not so stupid. There are facts you cannot escape; there are scientific reports of the last image beheld by a dying man remaining indelible in the dead eyes; the last thing Simon Conrad saw was I, the glint of the scalpel in my hand; a murderer come to claim him. So, you see why I am not fooled; you see why I am afraid. The mirror is dark, now. But, in its inscrutable well, nameless evil stirs, and would come to life the evil of murder and insanity that claimed Simon Conrad; the pallid horror that, sooner or later, shall rise again, from the depths to claim...

Wait... the liquescence in the mirror shifts... the evil writhes like forming ectoplasm... You see... I was not wrong... A rustling... the sounds made by the slow approach of ponderous death... a blur, now, in the glass... Yes!... That pale, fat face... nearer... Dear-God ...the eyes... the scaled blind eyes... and the scalpel... moving... upward... no...

*

I HAD come to the conclusion that the case of the disappearance of Simon Conrad was insoluble. I was wet and disgruntled; my men were glad the night was at an end. After hours of wandering the Schwarzwald region, fighting rain and treacherous marshes, we had unearthed nothing. Near dawn, the storm abated; the men returned, stoop-shouldered, to the Inn for dry clothes and warmed schnapps. For a long time, I stood irresolute on the Forest’s edge, staring across the lands of Zengerstein to where the ivy-slimed Castle ramparts rose like barricades guarding some ancient secret. I hated the thought of returning to Conrad’s wife and friends in Donaueschingen, unable to answer one of their anguished questions.